Larry Kart

I have very fond memories of Eva Marie Saint's performance in a 1976 made for TV production of George Kelly's 1947 play "The Fatal Weakness," described below (note that for the purposes of this board, the music is by the composer who shared a Columbia album in the 1950s with Teo Macero). Further notes: This is a remarkable play -- in the Philip Barry vein ("The Philadelphia Story," "Holiday") but deeper; Kelly was Grace Kelly's uncle; and as I recall the summary below doesn't quite get to what the play is about -- the well-off, rather buttoned-up heroine's "fatal weakness" is that she thinks of sentiment, partiularly romantic sentiment, as something that people like her typically don't get much of a taste of; therefore its presence in her life (when the subject arrives, fortuitously, in late middle age), and the resulting opportunity to muck about with it, can't be anything but a good and especially blameless thing. Saint's ability to bring this decent, foolish, tender-hearted character to life was something else. The Fatal Weakness By George Kelly Music by: Robert Prince With: Eva Marie Saint John McMartin Gretchen Corbett Dennis Dugan Charlotte Moore Sara Seegar Academy Award-winner Eva Marie Saint stars in this comedy about a hyper-romantic woman who receives an anonymous letter disclosing her husband’s infidelity. All seems well for the middle-aged suburban couple who are the protagonists of “The Fatal Weakness”…until the letter arrives. It then becomes apparent to the woman that her daughter’s marriage is falling apart as well. The resulting action – which includes a good deal of totally cockeyed detective work – produces a genuinely funny evening of entertainment. Miss Saint has stated that the woman she plays “could be any well brought up girl who suddenly realizes that marriage can become nothing more than a habit. In a sense, she is a woman who becomes liberated. The play was written in 1946,” she added, “ but it’s so little different from what we go through today.” Directed by Norman Lloyd

I used to work at the factory where they make hydrants but you couldn't park anywhere near the place.

Jim -- Who wrote that Mobley appreciation?

Here's an email exchange I had back in 1999 with the fellows at Vanguard about the Mel Powell "The Best Things In Life Are Free" reissue: Very much enjoyed the music on "Mel Powell--The Best Things in Life Are Free," but there are some nasty errors in the booklet. Several tracks that are said to be performed by the ensemble from the album "Out on a Limb" that includes Oscar Pettiford and Skeeter Best (for example, track 5, "Beale Street Blues") in fact feature the Powell, Ruby Braff, Bobby Donaldson trio from the album "Thigamagig." Track 13, "You're Lucky To Me," is said to be played a group, from the album "Mel Powell Septet," that includes Buck Clayton, Edmond Hall, Steve Jordan and Walter Page, when in fact the piano, guitar, bass trio trio heard on this and the following track consists of Powell, Pettiford and Best, and the Clayton, Hall band is nowhere to be heard on this CD. This last goof could really spread misinformation, because "You're Lucky To Me" includes an agile, boppish Pettiford bass solo the likes of which the otherwise estimable Walter Page could never have played; one imagines an unwary listener rewriting jazz history accordingly. Also, the tracks from the album "The Mel Powell Bandstand" clearly feature solos by an uncredited tenor saxophonist on several tracks. I don't have a discography at hand , so who is he? Bob Wilber? I suppose it might be Chuck Russo doubling, but an alto saxophonist solos on one of the tracks that includes a tenor solo, and Russo, who is credited as playing alto and other reed instruments, is unlikely to have taken two solos on one track. Again, I'm grateful for your reissue program and have already ordered the second Powell album, but you need to run a tighter ship, especially when the "The Best Things in Life Are Free" booklet rightly emphasizes the quality with which Vanguard operated in the 1950s. Dear Larry, Your e-mail regarding the Mel Powell package was forwarded to me. Needless to say I am concerned if, in fact, these errors prove to be substantiated. Sam Charters, a noted musical historian, first developed the idea of re-releasing the John Hammond Jazz Showcase about 10 years ago. However, this idea sat on a shelf until last year when I arrived at Vanguard. I also thought that we should research the series. Though I knew Mel Powell and even contribute liner notes to the second package I told Sam that I would have to rely on him for the identification of musicians. I have forwarded your e-mail to him for response. Unfortunately much of the information in the files regarding these sessions in the 1950s is sketchy at best. For each project all we could do was go to the files and see what musicians were listed for that particular album. In other words the album Mel Powell Septet that you sited only lists as musicians: Edmond Hall, Buck Clayton, Henderson Chambers, Steve Jordan, Walter Page, Jimmy Crawford and Mel. These are the only musicians listed in the session books from the 1950s as well as on the actual EP jacket released in 1953. I can address a couple of your comments. You stated that several tracks are said to be performed by the group from the album Out On A Limb. As an example you give "Beale Street Blues" and say that it is, in fact, from the album Thigamagig. I believe you are incorrect. Both our files and an actual jacket of the album Out On A Limb confirm that "Beale Street Blues" is indeed from the album Out On A Limb. Again this is confirmed both by our files as well as an actual jacket. You are correct that the Mel Powell Bandstand tracks feature a tenor sax player who is not given credit. Though our file notes do not list a tenor sax player the original jacket does list Boomie Richman on tenor sax. This one certainly slipped by everybody. As I have said I am forwarding your notes to Sam and will get back to you as soon as I have more information. Thanks for your interest. Best regards, Steve Buckingham Senior Vice President Vanguard Records Me again: I heard no more from Buckingham or Charters, but I have a friend who knows Charters who said that he was mad as a hornet that someone had made trouble for him at Vanguard over this. Don't know Charters myself and have no particular reason to wish ill to him, but in this instance he acted like a lazy screw-up. Did he even listen to the CDs once they were assembled? If so, he would have spotted these goofs. (Yes, I did goof myself, or at least I think I did, on the album "Beale Street Blues" came from, but the main point is that the liner notes have got the personnel wrong here; "Beale Street" is played by the trio of Powell, Ruby Braff, and Bobby Donaldson, not [as the notes have it] by those men plus Skeeter Best amd Oscar Pettiford. Again, listening would have made that obvious.) The other Powell ("It's Been So Long") and the two Braffs are the others in this series that I bought. Anyone find any other errors? Of course ( or maybe that should be, perhaps) the most troubling aspect of these Vanguard reissues is that they cherry pick from albums that should have been reissued in their entirety (e.g. Powell's excellent trio album, "Borderline," with Paul Quinichette and Donaldson).

Seems like there was a Cinderella interview once at the Classic Guitar Jazz website -- a guy referred to it in a post on a jazz guitar group once, even gave the name of the interviewer (search under "Joe Cinderella" on Deja News and that post will turn up) -- but it's not in that site's article archives now. You might try sending an email to the guy who runs the site.

Right! Now I remember. The thing just took my head off.

Thanks, Chuck -- coming from you that means a lot. I've forgotten about that phone call, though, I guess because once you've known someone for a long time it's hard to remember when you didn't. Did I call about "Sound" or "Congliptious" or something else? Don't remember when and how I met John (Litweiler) or Terry (Martin) either, except that it was around that time and it had to do with AACM doings. I do remember, though, how startling it was to discover that John was about my age. I'd read some of his record reviews in Kulchur, the literary magazine that Le Roi Jones and his then-wife Hettie Cohen, put out, and kind of assumed (because their tone was so relaxed and authoritative) that they must have been written by some scholarly, middle-aged gent who was sitting in his book-lined study in front of a crackling fire with an Irish setter at his side. Oh, right -- that was John McDonough.

"Here's a thought - how about an online index?" Let me think about that. Time and/or timing might be a problem for two reasons. First, I'm concentrating right now on figuring out what I need to do to support the book from a promotion/sales perspective (if in fact it turns out I can do any of those things and still be me); second, I've got an illness in the family situation (my 92-year-old father) that takes up a lot of time and can explode into urgent action status at any moment. On the other hand, putting together a comprehensive index might be just the right sort of relief from all that. I'll go to the library today and find something on how to do an index (of course I know how a good one works or should, but there must be handy tricks and short cuts).

"My copy arrived yesterday. I may never get off the john." Good to know it's having its intended effect. From now on, like L. Armstrong, I will sign copies "Swiss Krissly yours..."

Alankin: Sorry, no index. As I recall, I was looking forward to doing (or trying to do) that myself (because that was the only way I could be sure it would be done right, and also because I thought it might be fun) but Yale strongly "suggested" that they didn't think the book needed an index -- I think, but I'm not sure, because it would have added too many pages to a book that was at the upper edge of the number of pages it could be and still stand a chance of being profitable from the publisher's perspective. Economies of scale are a big deal for them. For instance, the manuscript had the dedication (to my son) on a separate page, but they moved it to the top of the copyright and credits page to save a page. Perhaps in all this the need to avoid another signature was what was at stake. Looking at the finished book, the lack of an index doesn't bother me now, but then I know what's in the book.

Yeah, those threats -- in response to two different pieces from the mid-'80s, one called "The Death of Jazz" (essentially about the burgeoning jazz neo-con movement, but the title [my editor's, not mine] really freaked people out), the other a mostly negative piece about Bill Evans -- were kind of funny. At least as I recall things, it was the Evans piece that inspired much more ire. Somebody told me that pianist John Campbell (a good player) wanted a piece of me, and I was in a record store when I overheard bassist Mike Arnapol (I think he's now with Patricia Barber or was at one time) say to someone that what I'd written about Evans made him so mad that he wanted to kill me. I went up to him, introduced myself (we'd never met, but I knew who he was), and after a while we agreed to disagree. (Arnapol, while very angry, didn't strike me as a Mingus-type personality; otherwise I probably wouldn't have done that.)

Thank you, Mike. I'm especially pleased that you like the way things are organized. But dig what my horoscope said yesterday (I'm not kidding): "Today is a 6 [out of 10]. Finally the moment you are worried about is here at last. Your work's being observed by somebody you admire."

"Please amplify. I have not paid attention for about 20 years. Ralph Moore distracted me for a while so I didn't notice Ricky's absence, then ............ I do have to say Ricky played the "Ralph role" when Schnitter evaporated." That's so "inside" that it frightens me to think that I pretty much understand it.

73? Watch out, Chris -- I think I'm catching up. Happy Birthday.

Anyone who wants it autographed, just send me a copy of the book, and I'll be happy to sign it and mail it back to you. If you want to take that route and don't have my address (I think Jim and some others here do), send me a PM. Or is there some simpler way to do this that I'm not thinking of? All this is new to me.

Just discovered that the link I posted to the site for the book at Barnes & Noble online (at a discount price, $28) doesn't work anymore, though the discount still stands. If anyone wants to take that route, it probably it makes more sense to go to the main Barnes & Noble site and search under the title "Jazz in Search of Itself." That's how I came up with the now defunct link in the first place, and doing that took me to the right place this morning.

A bit of I hope legitimate self-promotion. "Jazz In Search of Itself" -- a collection of everything I’ve written over the last 35 years or so that seems worth preserving, plus a fair amount of new stuff -- will be published, they tell me, on or about Nov. 16. You can read more about it here (click on the cover image and it gets larger): http://yalepress.yale.edu/YupBooks/viewboo...isbn=0300104200 I love that cover image BTW (taken from a circa 1957 photo I had of Ira Sullivan and Johnny Griffin at a Chicago club -- Nevin Wilson is the bassist) because its angled-upwards, front-table immediacy links up with one of the implicit themes of the book -- the inseparable relationship in jazz (for better or worse) between players and listeners. (And, of course, players are listeners too -- Griffin clearly is listening intently to what Sullivan is doing.) Also, the photo easily could have been taken on a night when I was present. Further info: I see that Barnes and Noble online is selling the book at a discount: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearc...R63&cds2Pid=946 Amazon at the moment isn’t. Finally, my favorite blurb (at least it’s a tie with Dan Morgenstern’s) isn’t on that Yale University Press website but is on the book jacket. It’s from Ira Gitler: "Larry Kart writes on jazz with a focus and clarity that makes me want to read on even when I disagree with him." My favorite quote in the book is this from a previously unpublished 1969 interview with Wilbur Campbell: "Every drummer who’s been playing can play anything he thinks of; the trouble is thinking of things to play. Lots of cats can play what they think, but they don’t think it."

Shaw on Dodds is a nice example of why the views on other musicians of very talented, even genius-level, musicians can't always be taken to the bank. What Shaw was striving for and achieved on the clarinet was so different from what Dodds was striving for and achieved that there could be, at least in Shaw's view, no common ground -- especially on an instrument that a musician who was oriented as Shaw was had to see in terms of either proper or gravely flawed technique. Artie on Dodds was like Jascha Heifitz faced with Stuff Smith (though maybe Jascha might have been hip enough to get what Stuff was up to). I think Shaw said similar things about Pee Wee Russell. I certainly recall a DB Blindfold Test in which reedman Dick Johnson, who led the band Shaw fronted in the '80s, said that Russell couldn't play the clarinet. Fortunately, we're in a position (I hope) where we can see the value in Dodds, Shaw, and Russell -- different as they are.

Yes, Eric, that's the one.

Guess I should take a pass on the Scott-DeFranco comparison because I don't know the later Scott. But even though I can think of DeFranco performances that have that "running off at the fingers" feeling (I used to think of him that way, too), seems to me now that there are many more of them (from all periods) where the speed and cleverness (at the very least) of DeFranco's thought matches his technique. About the coldness (coolness and/or reserve, I'd say) -- beyond a certain point, isn't that a matter of temperament, and temperament of a sort that jazz has (or ought to make) room for? In fact, the DeFranco I don't care for usually is the DeFranco who tries to sound more excited than he (probably) is. Otherwise, I've learned to enjoy the DeFranco who's genuinely absorbed in thinking and playing his way around corners.

Don't want to mislead anybody. Of the ones I've mentioned above, only the Sullivan "Bird Lives!" is decently recorded.

Also the Bird, Bud, Fats Navarro "One Night at Birdland" material from 1950, a week before Navarro died of TB (which seems impossible when you hear the way he's playing).

Lots of those mentioned above, plus the Ira Sullivan "Bird Lives!" concert on VeeJay from 3/12/62, with Nicky Hill, Jodie Christian, Donald Garrett, Wilbur Campbell, and Dorel Anderson (what a moment in time that was), and the "Bud Powell Trio, Birdland '53 Vol. 1" (I have it on Fresh Sound), with fantastic Bud and a mindboggling Roy Haynes solo on "Salt Peanuts" that might be the best thing he ever did.

Jim, your DeFranco meets the Jones/Lewis Band (minus Thad) encounter does sound traumatic, but I'd say that musically on most nights Buddy is hipper than Dick Oates and John Mosca put together (looks aren't everything). Do you know DeFranco's early '50s working quartet with Kenny Drew, Milt Hinton, and Blakey and the later quartet with Sonny Clark, Eugene Wright, and Bobby White (both recorded for Granz, the Clark quartet collected in that OOP Mosaic box)? Believe it or not, DeFranco and his undeniably hip sideman were of one mind musically. P.S. Don't know the Philology Tony Scott material, but the twiddly, piping, licks-driven Scott of the '50s (on Decca and RCA) usually gave me a headache.

Jim, what's up with that Buddy DeFranco remark? On a good day, Buddy's as fine as he ever was and still, as always, very much an "in the now" improvisor. Check out his excellent duo album with Dave McKenna from 1997, "You Must Believe in Swing" (Concord). And I've heard him play at that level several times since then. Another nominee -- Frank Chace.